On September 20th the Woodstock Public Librarians with CUPE 1146-07 will be in a legal strike position and it looks like they are being forced on strike by the Woodstock Public Library Board. This is a position the librarians NEVER wanted to be in.
A couple of weeks ago one of these librarians when asked, said that the main sticking point is not money, it’s contract language which the Board has unilaterally decided to discard without discussion with the workers. It is the current ability of p/t librarians to self-schedule their Sunday shifts. The Board wants to be able to mandate Sunday shifts which are currently voluntary. The librarians want to keep the status quo as it allows them the freedom to have a life! They get to schedule the Sundays as it fits their family and personal needs. And it WORKS! Now suddenly out of nowhere the Board wants to be able to dictate this process which is NOT BROKEN! This is an untenable act of authoritarianism. It is completely unnecessary!
The librarians are even willing to take a lesser pay raise in order to keep this language. In fact, having the librarians self-schedule actually SAVES the board money! They don’t have to pay out mandatory overtime rates! It is unbelievable that the Board RENEGED on a memorandum of settlement agreed upon by BOTH PARTIES, over this ridiculous issue!
The Librarians gave the Board chance after chance, even through a conciliator to replace the language in the contract with something…anything suitable. The Board gave NOTHING in return. That is NOT negotiating. That is simply dictating and it is unacceptable.
Please Woodstonians and all Oxford County residents email Woodstock councillors (running for re-election in the October municipal elections) and urge them to have the Board agree to this deal immediately so that library services (and lives) aren’t needlessly disrupted.
You can find a list of Woodstock councillors email addresses and Phone numbers here.
